


Novel

by LadyProto



Series: Commercial Worth [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Backstory, Books, Canon Backstory, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Foster Care, Gen, Give it a chance I’ve filled all the plot holes, Gritty, I will kill a man for a comment ok, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Language, Like all of this is backstory, Literature, M/M, Magic, Mild Language, Multi, Psychological Trauma, Puns & Word Play, Realism, Reality, lots and lots of backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29725947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyProto/pseuds/LadyProto
Summary: The words are new, but I think I’ve read this story before.((My first foray back into a serial story. Takes place in Riku’s POV during his time with Maleficent.))((And along the way you’ll meet: angst, classic novels, burning yourself with magical fire. PUBERTY. Realistic backstories, foster care failures, teenagers saying the word FUCK in Spanish, Disney — but like in a totally shouldn’t be this realistic way, — made up soup recipes, and not even the slightest breath of bodily autonomy))
Relationships: Just assume everyone is bi - Relationship, Kairi & Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Maleficent & Riku (Kingdom Hearts), May be updated - Relationship, Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Commercial Worth [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2184678
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Security Blanket

**Author's Note:**

> This story comes from the weird obsession I had as a child for the five second scene in Riku’s version of Chain of Memory wherein Maleficent gives Riku a small bedroom. According to the Voice in his head it was enough to throw away “his home and friends” for. This is more of that backstory. If there’s any questions please let me know.))

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prologue. 
> 
> I’ll break you like an oath. 
> 
> ((If this intrigued you, you’ll like the fic. I promise. ))

She gave me a bedroom.

At first, I teeter back and forth on my heels, somewhere between a hopeful step forward and a self-defeating push back into the warm darkness that is the Witch’s cloak. “What’s all this?” 

“Your room.” She flicks her wrist outward, directing my attention to what I’ve been gifted. A double bed hugs the back right wall, cowering in the corner like a child toying with an unseen treasure. There’s a desk opposite of it, covered in a fine layer of dust. Several matching bookcases run the length of the left wall, with no room for a window. In fact, there’s no natural light anywhere. Light, I’ve found, is the enemy. Anything done in this room will be lit only by candles and guarded industrial lamps. 

“What’s the catch?” I look up at Her, but she makes no move to return the gesture. Instead She remains as impersonal as always .

“There’s no catch. Just… agreements.” She smiles, all dark lipstick, never any teeth. She looks like an actress I’ve seen once —beautiful at the surface but with cheekbones sharp enough to kill. 

I want to back away, but I hold firm. “Agreements?”

She doesn’t answer at first, instead using Her gaze to call my attention back towards the untouchable nature that is my new bedroom. I wonder if She knows my past. She couldn’t, right? A woman from a different world would never know my… history. 

That very sentence sends my head reeling. Different worlds. Magic. Death. Kairi. This is all so much. I'm so, so tired. I’ve not had a moment of peace since the evening before the storm that set this all in motion. I think my hearts going to give out if I keep going at this pace. Am I dying? Is it a dream? If it is, I don’t know if I’d rather wake up or stay here. 

At least here, I have my own bedroom. I nod, mostly to myself, before walking over and touching the blankets. They feel like the industrial style of thermals that we had back in the group home, only these are yellow, like prison blankets. The pillow, however, looks quality enough, but it smells again like the group home — like bleach. I look up at Her again. She’s looking at me expectantly. She never clarifies what I’ve agreed to, so I decide to ignore Her as well. 

Spending time with Mal always drains me in ways I’ve yet to put words to.


	2. Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku reads a book. Curses. Remembers his mother.

The agreement is simple: I read the books she provides. I answer her questions. The agreement does not go both ways. My questions to her may not be answered, but I am to trust her.

I don’t. Never have. Never will. But it’s a book. How much damage could a book really cause me? Besides, there’s almost nothing to do here. I live my existence between this bedroom, the adjacent toilet and the open space that is a training room. Night and day are dictated to me. I wake up and find clean clothes. I drop them to the floor when I’m allowed to sleep. The desk in the corner is used for eating, staring at the wall and over-thinking as the seconds crawl by.

I wonder if the Island really did get destroyed. I wonder if the main island got hit too. If the clapboard houses were built to withstand a hurricane of that magnitude, if I could even call the magical swirl of stars and darkness a hurricane. 

I wonder how my mom is doing. I don’t think I’ve talked to her in a while. I was supposed to have my weekly phone call with her Friday, but guess that’s not going to happen now. She was the one that flaked out last week. I mean, I get it. I trace my finger around the pattern of wood along the desk’s top, watching how the darker grains never intersect with its paler parallels. I think I feel the same way about her. She’s always just behind the white blur of nicotine and bleached hair in my memories. 

Other than that, all I can envision is her forced hugs. In the end, we see each other as obligations. My obligation is probably now rotting under the sea. I pause at that thought, my fingers curling away from the the knot in the wood. Mom’s just not there anymore, huh? I look at the expanse of old tomes set before me, their undiscovered history lying covered by years of dust. She is (was?) my mother, but I mourn her passing with the detachment of a stranger. Because really, what else was she? 

It is so hard to connect to people sometimes. Guess I really am my mother’s son, huh?

I don’t like these thoughts anymore. I pull my hands from the desk and I turn to my first book. It’s Romeo and Juliet. I think this is the book that I was supposed to be assigned next year, during my freshman year of highschool. 

Ugh, High School, I remember the promise of that place with a pang.

I was _okay_ at school, but only _okay_. Maybe it’s because I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots. Maybe it’s because at the last school I was trying to keep dumbass Sora from fucking up every ten seconds. Whatever. I got solid B’s whereas he got C’s. My real talents shined in the physical stuff: jumping over the chain linked fence to get the dodge ball (Sora took the credit), rowing the old canoes through too deep of water, (I pulled the two of us through that wave) sword fighting at the beach without the fear of drawing blood (God, Sora, why am I always pulling your weight?!). I never did team stuff though — but I’m not sure why. Just seems like one thing the rich popular kids do. You know, the one whose moms make cookies for school bake sales even though they could fund the entire building with just one alimony check? Yeah. Those kind. 

I don’t get along with those kinds, and it’s not a team sport when I just can’t make myself part of that of a team. 

Teams. Families. Feuds. Either way, this story sucks. I instate at the thin paper beneath my palm. It’s just so hard to care. Juliet's 14. She’s old enough to know better. I guess that’s just the way it happens when a kid is raised in the walls of the governor's mansion like Kairi. Girls like that never know what's good for them. What could Romeo even offer her anyways? I mean, I’m 14 and I know better. 

So what the hell am I supposed to get from this book? My heart still feels strange at using that word. _Hell_ . Is this book supposed to show me the importance of familial ties? Or friendship? _Hell._ I repeat in my head, but the voice that speaks seems much older and much more mature. 

The echoes in my head quickly shift to the exterior. The click of needle point stilettos approach from the hallway outside of my cell. I turn to look over my left shoulder as the door hinges start their creaking , dramatically announcing the entrance of Her, The Witch, the only other being I’m allowed to see. She’s as theatrical as always as she stands half-illuminated in the light of heavily-shaded industrial lamps. The candles on my desk flicker from the sudden influx of fresh air. It makes the jewel between her eyebrows sparkle. 

Maleficent, the witch, is a foot taller than me, and that dark and twisted headdress makes her appear half-goddess to my mortal frame. I hit puberty early — precocious, the doctors said— but I look at those long legs peeking from underneath those dark robes and I think I will never live up to her stature. “Mal?” Is what comes from my mouth. _Hell_ the word in my head. “Maleficent?” 

“Riku.” Maleficent nods towards me, or at least I think it’s me before I realize she’s gesturing towards the open book on the desk

I lift my fingers from the pages. Of course. Why would I think she wants me? “I’m reading.” I promise. “I’m doing my part.”. I try to strengthen my words. “When are you going to do yours?”

“In due time, Riku.” The way she says my name always makes me feel sick to my stomach, like it’s not my actual name or something dumb like that. It is my name, right? First name: Riku. Last name: depends on if I give my mother’s, my presumed father’s, or foster parents. But all she knows is that I’m Riku, and the focus on me —as the singular and complete - enamors me more than my heart wants to admit. 

With the swishing of her long robe, she makes her way slowly across the room. I tear my eyes away and stare blankly at the tissue-thin page. Ink blurs as I stare down at a single line. 

_What’s Montague?_

_What’s Montague?_

_It is nor hand nor foot,_

_Nor arm nor face nor any other part_

_Nor any other part._

I’m in the middle of a shaky inhale when she touches my shoulder. I feel the warmth of her breath press damply against my cheek. I focus harder on the line. I don’t know what this means, only that it's the concrete in this ever shifting world. Eventually, she asks me: “Do you find this to be reality?”

“What?” My mouth separates slightly

“The book. Is it realistic?”

Oh. I forgot. In that short span of time she’s made my head blank. But that was our agreement, wasn’t it? I read. I answer only to her. 

_Hell_. I try to breath out the tension I’m holding in my arms. I don’t know why she always gets my heart racing. She’s done nothing to make me doubt her so why do I get such a bad vibe from her? I’m like a son, she says. Maybe that’s why I can’t trust her. “I mean I guess.” I clench my jaw even though her question seems so boring in comparison to what my head had begun to churn out. 

“You’re old enough to have some intelligent thoughts. Think, boy. Think.” 

I dig my toes into the ground and push the chair backwards, purposely screeching the chair against the concrete floor. I was hoping to hit her, but she side-steps it all gracefully without even acknowledging my rebellion. At least now she gives me room to breathe. I look up at her. She has her thin eyebrows arched, just waiting. Several beats later, she wins the war of attrition. “I mean, they think they love each other, right? The suicide was supposed to be fake.”

“And then?”

And then? I question myself. After death what is there? A 14 year old kills himself. He dies. The world forgets him except for the company called in to clean the mattress after his decaying matter oozes into his borrowed belongings. I wiggle my fingers against my thigh. How the _hell_ is this important? I dig back in my memory. I knew people a few years above me in school. They always said they “loved” each other, but what did they know? You can’t love someone until you’ve seen hate. 

I know hate. So I know its opposite. Somewhere in between is this Witch, with her movie-star face and her impersonal green stare..

I’m following her command, aren’t I? Without question she has me thinking. I am her boy. I am thinking because she says so. I am thinking of Kairi. I've known her since she was found washed up on the shore of our main island. I was six. Her? Five. Trauma gives me memory problems, the therapists say. Some things I forget. Others, I remember in too vivid a detail. So I replay the moment I watched as the fishermen pulled her to shore, their blood-and-viscera stained hands leaving dark oxidized prints on her little white dress. I remember the way she bent and tumbled like a doll filled with scraps, and the way her muddy red hair looked like a too-loved raggedy-ann.

As emergency teams had rushed the shore, I looked on with curious blank eyes. Why did everything that touched her make her dirty? Why did she have to show up there, on those islands with no hope of escape? I remember thinking I would never see her again. That it would be for the best. This was before I started school with Sora. Me and him played together at times, but my foster home was not in that school district yet. This was years before I knew how intertwined my life would be with Sora and Kairi’s.

Where are they now? I drum my fingers against my thigh. I swallow back the word again. _Hell. Hell._ I haven't seen Kairi in a while. Or whatever is left of her. Or — “are we done here?” The voice that comes out of me booms, deeper, stronger. I like the way it sounds.

The Witch smiles. Well the hell is she so happy? In her smile I am transported to a place I don’t recall — but one that sends my Heart fluttering. I see test-tubes, long white halls, my own sword with two heads like a snake ready to eat itself from either side. I crick my neck to shake the thought from my head. Neurons spark as they make new connections. My brain tumbles inside my skull like I've taken too many sips of mom’s Smirnoff. I am The Witch’s equal for one glorious moment. The world fades in and out of the reality in which I'm so much bigger and stronger than my physical body. I have the balls to stare her down, despite my place in the chair. 

And then.

It all fades. 

Then… there is nothing. I am a fourteen year old boy with no last name, just seated in the cold abandoned room that has become my world. The moment is gone and I am staring up at Her — my rescuer, my hope, my entire world. The only definitive entity is her. The witch. For a moment there’s a curtain of kindness over her heavily-shadowed eyes. I’m a child. I don’t understand. “Am I done here?” My voice is so small it doesn’t even echo. My pubescent mind settles with the fact I belong here. Amongst the refuse.

“You are getting so wonderfully close, my boy, my Riku.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sparknotes lists the themes of Romeo and Juliet as: The Forcefulness of Love, Violence because of Love, and Individual vs Society. 
> 
> https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/romeojuliet/themes/


	3. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The safest place to be is in the eye of the storm.
> 
> ((Riku tries a spell. Lands on titty))

“Close your eyes. Imagine the storm”

I do as I’m told. The rough, wooden boards of the training room disappear as I focus on the past. I was on the beach. Everyone else had gone back home to the main Island. I was alone, as always, watching the storm begin to swell from my place on the pier. 

The normal gray of storm clouds were suffocated by infinite stretches of black and purple smog. The rain cut my face. Roaring wind whipped my clothes until they clung to my body. Trees flashed their phallic roots, ripping themselves from the sand only to lunge back into the earth when the wind changed directions. 

Only I and the dark swirling eye of the storm remained constant. We stared eye-to-eye, debating who would break first. 

It was then that I had a quickened sense of perspective: I saw how small this Island was in comparison to the dark horizon. How small I would be cursed to remain unless I reached out to touch the storm. It was an entity at that point, and the way the abyss spoke my name was more alluring than the idea of the foster home behind me. I inserted my finger tips. It molded around my hand, pulsing and swirling while I curled my fingers. It was like holding the remains of a beached jellyfish: soft, dangerous, wriggling. 

“Open now”

Here, in the present, I obey. I open my eyes. I— oh god. In my palm, I hold the storm itself. Mature. Violent. Hell itself.

“Steady.” Maleficent commands me. “Don’t disappoint me. Focus.” She snaps her fingers as if I am a dog.

Does she not see that I‘m trying? My head pounds. A swirling ball of purple electricity sparks in and out of existence. Every blood vessel in my body dilates and constricts in the same rhythm. The entirety of my body feels like the moment after a burn, when the cold water flows over scorched skin. My skin is numb as if from ice, but my nerves, my muscles — hell. It feels like hell. They burn.   
_  
It hurts.  
_  
I can’t keep my hand lifted in front of me anymore. Everything that was once engorged now violently shrivels. I can’t do this anymore — my abdomen caves into a slouch. The power in my hand burns out. 

I can’t—

I’m not —

Everything goes cold. 

I feel every neuron in my head spark, die, scream. No,  _ I’m _ screaming. Everything collapses like a dying star. I am dying. I’ve never been the star of anything but I am dying in this magic storm. I am rust. I am stardust. I close my eyes. I stumble backwards, my breath ragged. I don’t know which part of me is upright. Maybe I’m tumbling. My skin feels like it’s splitting from my muscles. My stomach muscles keep contracting ever as the rest of me is slammed back into reality. I’m throwing up canned soup and deep black tar. I keep retching from my tailbone to my throat. I can’t make it stop, I can't catch my breath.

I fall.

But I don’t hit the ground. The back of my head lands softly against the inky black darkness of her robes. Her. The Witch. My head fits perfectly at the bottom of her breasts. I’m being touched. Hands. Hers are thin, bony, somehow dainty and commanding at the same time. The darkness her long fingers command is intoxicating. Those hands make their way to my shoulders. They grip my arm. More than the touch, I smell her. Leather. Crows’ feather. Sweet, sweet jasmine blossoms and the deep smell of smoky cedar. It all weaves together to form the image of her.

Maleficent brings forth some kind of green healing like and holds the warmth of it to my cheeks. Is she healing me? My hair’s gotten quite long — my rebellion in the flesh — so she has to reach underneath it to touch my face. “You did well.” She assures me. She tilts my face skywards, back to my spine. Her face becomes my whole world at that moment. She’s beautiful, at least in this half-dazed moment, she makes me think of movie stars I’ve seen on magazine covers in the psychiatrist waiting room. Something angular and dark like seaside cliffs. She coos soft praises to my forehead, sweet little things that implant themselves in my groggy head.“You’ve a gift.”

I have a gift. All I can hear is that  _ I’m _ the gift. One day Kairi’s gonna watch magic erupt from my fingers. Maybe Selphie and Titus too. Sora can come or whatever, as long as they get to see what I can do. I’m thinking about being in the center of attention when whatever she’s doing to me makes me sort of just black out.

I did my first spell. I command  _ Darkness _ . 


	4. Wuthering Heights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riku disassociates. Does handwriting analysis. Understands the concept of hearts.
> 
> And has a huge fucking ego
> 
> (Srsly google the numbers. They tell the story)

I think that’s my writing—?

I frown at the writing in front of me. I’ve got one of the many tomes from my new bookshelves spread out on the desk. It’s not technically a book, I don’t think. It looks like loose notes that have been bound together as an afterthought. The pages are old — so old that the paper is brown and the leather binding is dry and crumbly. All of this stuff had to be written before I was even born. So why does this look like my writing? Gingerly, I bring my forefinger to the thinning paper. I practice tracing the block-letter _**A**_ that signs the end of every entry. I swear I feel some kind of energy jump through the ink.

This is my handwriting. Or at least, it’s an example of one of the ways I can form my letters. It’s not the kind I use on essays or homework, but it’s my half-disassociated scrawl— a simple **_A_** , narrow and crossed low to the blue line on our college-ruled paper. I write like this when the droning buzz of the homeroom teacher’s voice began to blend into my daydreams.

Sometimes I’d lose entire class periods to the ideas I dreamt up. The ones that made me sound better-adjusted, I’d tell to the social worker. I’d like to be the first person in my family to graduate highschool. Maybe I could get into community college on the main island, the one that taught people how to be secretaries to a big law firm, or assistants to a bigwig CEO. _Or how to be a low level therapist,_ I’d add with just enough ice that the person interviewing me couldn't tell if I was admiring her or putting her down. I’d continue while she frantically wrote notes on her plain, brown clipboard. I’d work my way through college at a coffee shop until I met a cute girl, like in those visual novels that my dumber classmates would gawk over. It’d all end in a picket fence, lit golden from daybreak. I’d have two kids. I mean I’ve never liked kids or anything — my own classmates annoy me — but having ‘em seems like a good way to prove myself. They’d be a good tool to show I’m not as not genetically defective or insane. 

Outside of the recollection of my past, I take in more of the notes in front of me. I assume the same position I would have made at school: my right hand tracing the letters in front of me, my left hand developing a mind of its own and drumming against the attached desk.

But sometimes… sometimes, in that state, with my fingers wiggling like a chess player debating their next move — I’d have an overwhelming surge of darkness. Of anger. I wanted to show people exactly what those numbers meant. I remember sitting in the office of the island’s primary school, trying so hard to be still so that the metal folding chair wouldn’t rock beneath me. That place was much, much smaller than my last school, but the stack of papers with my name on them were much, much taller. As the case worker and principal spoke, I committed the codes to memory: 995.51. F41.9. Z62.822. My personality reduced to a string of numbers.

Even at that age, I knew what those numbers meant, but I was never allowed to talk about them. My history wasn’t _appropriate_. The language used to describe my life wasn't _appropriate_. It’s not _appropriate_ that my answer to the question “what's your address?” changed faster than I could keep up with. There was never a dad to give Father’s Day crafts to. No use writing a letter to grandma on Grandparents day either. Mom might have received the Mother’s Day card if she was allowed mail from whatever prison or rehab she was at at the time. My history would never be _appropriate_ for others. I learned that lesson from the knotted brows and concerned, widened eyes of the teachers that looked down at me before quickly taking me aside. _Just pretend._ They’d say. _Pretend_. _The other kids will never understand. The other kids just have it better. Don’t ruin it for then._

_Dont ruin them with your horrid self._

It was then that I realized I was not, nor would I ever be _appropriate_ for consumption. It’s with that thought, I’d zone further into a dream world, one bubbling with ultra-violence. Whereas I could only envision the positive fantasies as something fuzzy and distant, I could see the blood, terror, the brutality at my hand with the clarity of a crystal ball. I’d dream about magic — the magic I’d never known existed at the time. How cool would it be to command fire — blazing respect out of my finger tips. My heart would race at the idea of going back to my court-appointed therapist. He said I was too crazy and difficult to place, so I’d show him true crazy. I’d need a random guy’s head, or some kind of roadkill — there wasn’t really much difference when it came to that side of me. I’d throw it on his desk, tell him to add R45.85 to my Z69.010.

Let me earn the numbers that have replaced my name.

The object of my anger would change depending on my current obsession. And I only knew obsession. Sometimes it would be Mom, or whoever she claimed was my dad. On my worst days, I wanted to kill god himself. I wanted him to kill me too. I’m my disassociated stupor — with my hair over my eyes and the pen in my hand like a weapon — I’d dream about the hour of my death, in which I'd have blood spurt on my face and chest. The climax. The conception. My birth. My death. I see the beginning of my life as bloody and violent. Why shouldn’t my death be just as gruesome?

In this reality though, in this cell, I force my fingers to stop their drumming. With my right fingers tightly circling my left wrist as if in a unilateral possession, my flashback dissipates like mist against a sunbeam. I sigh heavily. I put my chin up to the ceiling again, but instead of seeing the Witch, I see the smooth pipe less ceiling. I thusly resign myself to life. These psychology books on my new desk tell me slitting my wrist would be a girl's death. I’ve never felt like a man, so maybe that’s acceptable. I think about girls a lot. I think about boys a lot too. I’d say I’ve thought about experimenting, but that word has only ever conjured up images of test tubes in my head.

Am I that messed up? No. Really, the other kids were just immature and sheltered.

I nod to myself. I’m already using past-tense to describe them. I’ve moved on. Or…

My entire body stills as I tear my eyes away from the notes. I do miss Kairi.

I miss Sora too, a little anyways. He and I had been friends, I think. I mean, I couldn’t really connect sometimes but I’d always like spending time with him. And unlike the other kids in my class, it wasn't just because of proximity either. We’d played together since we were really little. We’d sword fight with sticks and then eventually little wooden swords that Sora’s dad had made for us, before the boat accident. I’d make fun of how Sora stood all slouchy like a little old lady. He said I held my toy sword too stiff, like the creepy mannequin in lady’s department stores. It didn’t really mean anything thought, because the two of us would run like madmen on the island, kicking up sand into the deep blue sky. But then the sun would dispear under then ocean’s expanse, and Sora’s mother would would call him for dinner.

And then I would be alone.

But then Kairi showed up not long after. We were friends too, until I got moved to the other side of the island for a few years. That foster home got rid of me cause their other foster wanted to be with his little brother. They didn’t have enough room for all three of us, so I had to go. I really never hated them for that. If anything I was glad to be back on my side of the island.

I even went back to school with Sora. Kairi was there now too! But… their new faces didn’t match the ones I’d made in my head. Sora didn’t hit puberty like I did. There were no extreme growth spurts or pronounced muscles. He looked like he had when I left him last: with unthreatening soft cheeks and a disgustingly wholesome face. He was twelve then. Innocent mind. Innocence heart.

Maybe I hated him for that.

Maybe Kairi loved him for that. She was also twelve, whereas I was thirteen. She had the cutest, purest little bell-like giggle. My voice was cracking, even when I laughed at dirty jokes in the boys bathroom. She was living with the mayor, so she dressed neatly, with even her uniform stockings pressed into perfect seems along her calves. I was still figuring out how to use the steam function of the iron properly. I don’t know which of these reasons was the catalyst to her whispers to Sora: just leave Riku behind. Let’s go on the raft. Just me and you.

Kairi said to leave me. I mean, I get why. Really I do. But hell. Feels like my heart’s been stabbed so many times it’s fallen to my stomach. I think if she’d just given me ten minutes I could have proved to her that I was worth something. Maybe I could have proven that I was strong for my age, bigger, taller — precocious, the therapist had said. Maybe I could have proven that I was not as distant. Or that I could be more than the sum of my parts.

Maybe if I met her now I could do the same thing. I've learned. I’d say to her, here look at my hands. Look what I’ve learned. Look at the magic in my hand. Ignore the fact that I get knocked back into the wall every time I try. Just look at what I — and only— can do. I am better than you think, Kairi.

I don’t think she’d be fooled. I’m rotten. In the darker side of my fantasies, she echos the Witch’s words. I want Kairi to be brutally honest as she stares into my freakish eyes. I want to be told that I’m horrible. I’m evil. I want to stop pretending. I want Kairi to take my angular face in her soft hands and say whatever depreciating thing her pretty gloss-pink mouth can spit out. I’d welcome it, as long as she was looking at me. Anything, as long as it was only me she was thinking of.

I really, really don’t want to be on this train of thought any longer.

I tear my left hand away from the desk entirely and place it on my chest. I have no idea how long its been since I’ve last slept. I have no idea how much time has passed. I can’t count by new sunrises like how prisoners scratch tally marks into their cell walls. I’m not seeing the sun. I can’t count by sleep either because the witch has been depriving me of it lately. She insists I haven’t done enough to deserve it.

Maleficent is right, though. I’ve done like, what, one spell? I uncover my face and stair over my crossed arms at the notes in front of me. Those pages say there’s so much I don’t know. I know only the spell for darkness, but it knocks me backwards every time I try it. I still have to figure out Fire to Firaga. Holy light. The power of ice storms. Whoever wrote these papers — whoever A is — they knew everything about magic.

The unknown A talks a lot about these things called Hearts too. Heart, always spelled with a capital H. It means like spirit or soul or something. I’m not sure how much of this I believe, but considering I just found out magic exists, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. It says some people come out with Hearts already rotten. Guess I can believe that. It says that others are born too pure- Hearted for their own good. Everything can change though. People can grow to be either or. There’s strict rules on how these Heart things can be moved around and manipulated like a physics problem.

Maleficent's little gifted library has books on that too — physics, science, biology, history. There’s even books in other languages that I’ve never heard of. I try to pick out a few words from each, even though I’m not entirely sure I’m saying them right. Hola. Chico. Adios. Niña. Estoy Feliz.

Estoy Mintiendo

Estoy Asustado.

I close the notes and push them to the side. I said earlier that I don’t want to do this anymore. Why does it feel like I’m arguing with myself? Ugh. I’m supposed to be reading a new novel anyways. Wuthering Heights. I don’t know the word wuthering but it looks a lot like withering. Dying. There’s a lot of dying in this book, but I don’t think those mean the same thing though. It’s all about a house on a windy cliff and this neglected, troubled kid named Heathcliff. He gets adopted by a wealthy family and falls in love with his adopted sister named Catherine. The rest of the story is just him and her making increasingly dramatic shows of love until finally someone finally just dies.

Seems like there’s a lot of that in love stories. Eleven people died in this book because Catherine and Heathcliff said they had conjoined souls. Someone’s always got to give up something for love. I actually kind of like this book though.

There is something badass about the guy digging his dead girlfriend out of her grave with his bare hands. It reminds me of my zoned out states, and my dramatic epiphanies. I dare look at my left hand again, this time sitting listlessly on the desk. I hear voices inside my head — big and booming. The thoughts feel as if I am grown, as if I am in control. As if I could kill Maleficent, the Witch herself. It reads the cursive scrawl under my fingertips. The words I hear are sparse, but clear. They feel as if they are my own.

Savior. Power. Darkness.

I close my eyes. I envision the anger of the storm. A tiny ball of darkness appears into reality. I lose myself in the compact but o roaring spelled of darkness on my forefinger.

It’s not much, but it doesn’t disappear this time.

Kairi, Sora. Are you ready? If I cause enough chaos, will you let me in?  
———-

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a lot of word play in future chapters and real biological definitions. Google is your friend. Also: I AM YOUR FRIEND! Talk to me at https://yourscientistfriend.tumblr.com/ask. I can assure you I have a reason for any little detail.


End file.
